52 A Brief Intermission
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"The twins have certainly improved quite considerably..."
Back at the audience side, Rory calculated and carefully commented on the potential dangers both Dan and Dennis possessed with them now capable of playing more independently from each other.
"It would add to Ravenville's repertoire of plays for sure, but as [String] users, their damage output's still very limited so there's that." Rex added,
"Look there, Magnolia's Front Guard still had about 75% of his HP left even after their tower's mid section was broken. Compared to that, on Ravenville's side..."
Rory followed his words and also turned towards the other half of the monitor that was still displaying Ravenville players' stats at the moment.
The number #4 player, which was the Front Guard that had baited Sylphie hunter during the start now had only slightly more than 40% of his HP left even though only the upper section of their tower had been dismantled.
"He's sustained a couple of Magnolia Captain's charging thrust during their second offensive..." Rory smiled wryly looking at that.
"Yeah, It's not an exaggeration to say that that girl had one of the highest damage output amongst all the college players this year. Top 5? ...No, Top 3." Rex nodded in agreement,
"--Still, that bursting charge of a thrust is a very restricted move. Especially with this terrain."
The damage caused by the jousting lance travelling at the speed of Sylphie's [Blast] propeller was not something that could simply be brushed off by anyone.
But for it to be performed properly, Sylphie needed to not only build up some distance first, but also lined the target up perfectly with her timing to achieve its maximum damage.
"--Speaking of each team's captain, may I have your thoughts on Renee Morgan?" Rory proceeded to ask another question.
"Mm... Nothing much to say I suppose. Every improvement we've seen of her year by year has been accumulated into this current form. This year will be the best year for her yet, I've heard she's already been contacted by some pro teams' scouts."
"That's what I've heard as well. But I'm sure Eastern Zeta wouldn't easily allow themselves to get outshined this year, right?"
"Hoho, I think neither Verdante nor Eastern Zeta would want that, but a good player wouldn't remain hidden one way or the other. All we gotta do is compete. Anyway..."
Rex's squinted eyes was now looking at one of the teams' corners.
"It's Ravenville's substitutions time-out now."
"...Yes, their starters have only consisted of old players. This time we'll finally be able to see their new generations perform."
Rory habitually fixed his glasses one more time and waited with the same level of anticipation as Rex.
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On the walkway from the field into the Ravenville's locker room, Renee took off her helmet with both hands as she dragged her feet forward.
*phew*
Behind her, Dan, Dennis, Clint, and the rest of the starting players also flowed in with their helmets off.
All the players had varying degrees of exhaustion at this point in time, but just from the looks of it, it was quite clear to see that both Dan, Clint, and Renee were amongst the worst of them.
Both Dan and Clint were the two who had to contend with the other team's Captain the most, while on the other hand, Renee had been the team's sole scoring power against them.
Of course, that's not to say that the other team's Captain, Sylphie, didn't feel any exhaustion at all after what they'd been through.
The constant struggles of Magnolia that managed to maintain the current score of 2-1 could be largely attributed towards her and her Solver's performance in their speedy counter-attacks.
At least compared to Ravenville that had a wider set of casts that had contributed to the match, Magnolia's current performance relied largely on these two people as the core.
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Before the starters of Ravenville could even reach their locker room, all of them were already greeted by the figure of their Head Coach and the rest of their teammates standing midway through the walkway.
In front of them; Irvine, Derrick, Greg, Baron, and the others were already in their full armour waiting idly for them to arrive.
Just from the looks of it, everyone could understand that the substitutions this time were not going to just be for 1 or 2 players, at least in their case.
"Great job." Lark gave a simple compliment to the starters before turning around and gesturing the rest to follow him inside.
Renee nodded at the figure and accepted it matter-of-factly.
Only after all of the players had gone into the locker room did their actual briefing commence.
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"As all of you might've guessed, with this being a sparring match and all, there's going to be a great number of substitutions now. And since we're not really given a lot of time to do this--"
*flip*
Lark swiftly took out a large binder from behind.
When all the players had finally been seated on the room's long benches, Lark too began his next order of business for the match.
"--I think I'll just announce the names of players who're going to be on the field after this directly. First off..."
"Fielder: Derrick Wallace."
The Head Coach immediately started reading through the list based on positions, but the more surprising thing came right after,
"Solver: Naomi Fletcher, Irvine Lang."
"!!"
It was unexpectedly a 2 Solvers formation.
The first one to comment on it under his breath was Derrick,
"Seriously, we're going with 2 Solvers already...? Damn, the pressure..."
The 2 Solvers formation would mean that he'd be the only Fielder on the field for Ravenville.
Depending on what the enemy's strategy would be, he might even become a primary target to force them to bring out the less damaging and already more than exhausted Dan or Dennis from the reserve.
'Well, we still have another 3rd year Fielder aside from me... They won't be able to know for sure how many Fielders we have on our team so this outcome's less likely to happen I think.' Derrick tried to calm down and examine his options carefully.
"Heyy, we're already giving you a 1-point lead here--"
"--Don't give such a sad excuse now."
Not far from him, the two brothers reprimanded Derrick's comment while still wiping their heads from the sweats,
When Irvine looked at him, Derrick just smiled wryly since he himself also knew that they'd already wholly prepared themselves for this formation too.
Instead of him, to the side, Irvine had noticed another person whose face was paler than everybody else in the room.
"E, eeh..." A girl muttered under her breath.
It was Naomi Fletcher.
She was the other Solver who's also from the same year as Derrick and Greg, a sophomore.
From what little interactions he'd had with her, mostly during their first night-out after the first day of training camp, Irvine knew that this teammate of his was a timid and introverted person even though her solving speed was still faster than him overall.
'If I remember correctly, she uses [Overload] just like Medea...'
From a single glance, he could see that the girl was very nervous although she should already have some experience playing in Uncrowned Tournaments during her time in 2nd String, not to mention a mere sparring match.
'Than it's most likely because it's her first match in the 1st string.' Irvine concluded.
He himself wasn't really planning on calming her down or something of similar nature after noticing this. The sparring match was set up exactly for this purpose after all.
Not to mention he wouldn't even know if advising her would bring about the opposite effect or not.
All he knew from the countless practices he'd done with her was that the girl was actually a very good player. Enough to deserve her place amongst the 15 members of the 1st string.
Both her speed and strength was also quite appropriate for a top college's player.
The only still lacking points of her was that she was not that proficient in dodging even when compared to the other positions' members.
Looking from this aspect, she looked somewhat like a clumsy person.
'But her solves seem to have some sort of tricks to it that helped her become faster...' While Irvine got caught up in his own thoughts, the announcement was still ongoing in the room.
"--Ranger: Medea Dormer,"
This one was to be expected because she was the only other Ranger beside the exhausted Clint.
If they put her in now, even if she somehow got eliminated, Clint with a still relatively high HP would've recovered some stamina by then to resume the role.
Irvine saw the occasional determined look on Medea's face as she firmly nodded to the announcement.
"Now Guards! Front: Baron, Mid: Clayton, Rear..."
The announcement was eventually finished when Lark had reached the final position.
'Baron in front is also normal, I suppose.' Irvine nodded with a certain level of understanding.
Even though in the future Baron's position was not a Front Guard, in this situation where the match were less likely to reach the third tower before ending, putting him first would prove to be a wiser decision.
Should Ravenville's first tower fall, Lark had the confidence that Baron wouldn't be eliminated yet and would be able to reinforce Greg's tower.
'More importantly, this'll be my first match in college...' Irvine also prepared himself mentally, but then.
'--Ah, right!'
Seemingly remembered something, without drawing any attention to himself, Irvine took a step back and pull out his mobile phone from his bag.
He proceeded to type the statistics and situation of the match, along with various hypothetical questions into a message form before sending it to his sister who should still be at school right now.
As the title, he wrote: [Homework. I'll send the video of the entire match tonight.]
This was actually something that his sister had proactively resquested of him herself.
The day before he'd gone to campus, Althea had asked him to occasionally send her his matches statistics and videos for her to learn from.
But because during the training camp and daily practices there're hardly any proper match, he hadn't had the chance to send her anything until now.
Since Irvine thought that his sister was determined enough to do something like this, he decided to respond by also adding hypothetical questions for her to fill out and contemplate upon.
"This one's also slowly moving towards her past self..." He pondered as he put the device back down.
In the future, Althea's talent was one that was fully appreciated by everyone from the Zeta Androids, she had even gotten her own article published by the local sports magazine once.
But before Irvine could delve deeper into his past future, unfortunately the time had come for him to pave the way for his current one.
*CLAP*
"Alright. This formation shouldn't be foreign anymore to any of you guys. Move out there and win!"
"""Yes, sir!"""
The echo of seven people's voice resounded through the locker room.
Even the usually silent Baron didn't spare his voice during such a moment.
After, all the newly put in players did some light high-fives with the starting players who went out.
"Go bring it home!" "Good luck."
Several similar encouragements resounded in the locker room for just a while longer.
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Derrick and Greg carried their helmets out as they walked closer to Irvine.
"...Our first actual match in the 1st string Lang." Derrick lightly bumped his knuckle on Irvine's shoulder with Greg following closely behind.
"Yes!"
"It's just too bad I'm the Middle Guard..."
"Are you cursing our front tower to fall right now?" Derrick looked weirdly at Greg.
"--Still, with our plays, you shouldn't need to worry about not getting enough action right?" Irvine added with a smile on his face, causing the other person to grin as well,
"...That's true too."
Since they'd spent almost half of their waking moments together for close to 3 weeks, they had become somewhat closer with Irvine at some point in time.
This was especially so when the three had become the 'new guy' together as they entered the 1st string regulars' roster.
Currently, none of the three were feeling too nervous because the composition of players that they had right now was one of the things they'd practiced extensively these past few days.
"...Let's go!"
